Letters to the editor, Feb. 13

Published 8:47 pm, Tuesday, February 12, 2013

A motorcyclist lanesplits while traveling along Octavia Blvd. on Friday, Feb. 8, 2013, in San Francisco.

A motorcyclist lanesplits while traveling along Octavia Blvd. on Friday, Feb. 8, 2013, in San Francisco.

Photo: Noah Berger, Special To The Chronicle

Letters to the editor, Feb. 13

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There has been and continues to be the controversy over running a business in California with its taxes and regulations. Lately the articles involve Gov. Rick Perry of Texas ("Perry sees Brown's rip as free money," the Bottom Line, Business, Feb. 12).

My response to anyone who mentions this is: "If you work in a chemical factory, would you rather work in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi or California?" I would rather work in California.

Mary Piowaty, Susanville

'Bravo!' by the sea

What a great front-page story: "Elegy in sea major" (Feb. 11).

Pianist Mauro Ffortissimo and colleagues capture the public's attention and imagination without guns, without obstructionism, without tragedy, just plain old in-your-face art and music, this time on the beach.

Thank you, maestro, for taking us all to a better place. An early valentine to life. You deserve a Grammy: best performance of the year.

Prosecute S&P

You are going too easy on S&P. I think you should support criminal prosecution of S&P (and Fitch and Moodys) for what they did just to make a buck (AAA ratings on toxic mortgage securities). If, instead, they had done the right thing (given the lowest rating or no rating at all), it would have nipped in the bud the financial crisis.

Furniture fumes

During Gov. Jerry Brown's first term, the state passed Flammability Ruling 117/75, requiring all upholstered filling material sold in California be treated with a fire retardant.

Being in the furniture industry, I diligently fought against that regulation. We argued that the chemicals were not only highly toxic but also unstable. They would slowly be released into the atmosphere, and could bring great harm to people's health. Our pleas to overturn the bill fell on deaf ears. Because of California's economic status, within three years all industries worldwide went along with the ruling.

Now, for 37 years, the unintended consequences of this regulation have brought great harm worldwide.

It is time for California's Legislature to correct this most horrible mistake and repeal Regulation 117/75. The entire world will be thankful.

Fat not funny

I could not disagree more with the registered nurse who wrote cheering New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's vitriolic remarks on behalf of all the "fat" people who face bias in their personal lives ("Standing up for fat people," Feb. 9).

There's a big difference between being overweight and being morbidly obese like Christie (100 pounds over one's target weight), which comes with at least a half dozen well-documented health risks.

If Christie doesn't want people commenting publicly on his weight, he should not be appearing on late-night talk shows joking about his weight and - especially - chowing down on glazed doughnuts.

It's said that Christie has presidential ambitions. The president of the United States is a role model for millions of people. In a country with an epidemic of childhood obesity, with an average weight higher than any other country, what would it say to have a morbidly obese president?

Bay Area backup: No surprise

Anyone who drives on Bay Area freeways has known for a long time that our traffic is as bad as in Los Angeles ("Tied up in traffic as bad as L.A.'s?" Feb. 11). Just sit in traffic on the Bay Bridge, Interstate 80 in Berkeley, Interstate 580 in the Tri-Valley. What's the solution?

Chris Loo, South San Francisco

Transit no option

No surprise that traffic in the Bay Area is horrendous.

A contributing reason, maybe the main reason, is the total lack of public transport in the area. Is San Francisco the only major city on the planet that requires one to drive through the city to get to a bridge?

My son lives in Marin, and I have great difficulty navigating from the Peninsula through the city. On a whim I called the help line, and the nice lady on the receiving end said in fact one can take public transport.

You take Caltrain, she continued, to the Millbrae Station, switch to BART, take BART to the Embarcadero Station, debark and walk to the Embarcadero and then to the terminal, where one then picks up the ferry over to Marin.

A bit perplexed, I said, "But that sounds like a three-hour trip." She replied, "three hours, 12 minutes."

In the crazy lane

Do I as a car driver "own" the space in my lane? That is, can I drift four or five inches right or left as a legitimate, normal part of driving as long as I stay in "my" lane?

Another way of putting it: If I'm clearly in my lane, doing 65, and a motorcycle comes up between me and the car in the next lane, as I happen to drift, say, three inches left and bump the cyclist, spilling him, have I caused the cyclist's death?

I've always driven with the bulk of my attention on the cars to my right and left and in front of me. Seems as if I now should be checking both my left and right rearview mirrors every 10 seconds or so to make sure I'm not being overtaken by a lane-splitter, who 95 percent of the time comes out of nowhere.

This is craziness.

Bruce Reeves, Walnut Creek

Driving badly

Re: the letter "Give me a signal" (Feb. 9).

Could not agree more with the writer's concern that there is an increase in turn signals not working. Is it another symptom of the technological advances in society that appear to be responsible for an erosion of basic manners? In the case of turn signals, the failure to use them is not just bad manners, it is bad driving that could cause accidents.

Jeremy Smith, Berkeley

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